Kurdish forces just cut off one of ISIS' most important supply routes

A
Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) fighter looks towards a position
which has been hit by Islamic State car bombs in Sinjar, March
11, 2015.REUTERS/Asmaa
Waguih

SINJAR, Iraq (AP) — Kurdish Iraqi fighters, backed by the
U.S.-led air campaign, launched an assault Thursday aiming to
retake the strategic town of Sinjar, which the Islamic State
group overran last year in an onslaught that caused the flight of
tens of thousands of Yazidis and first prompted the U.S. to
launch airstrikes against the militants.

Hours into the operation, the Kurdish Regional Security Council
said forces were in control of a section of Highway 47, of one of
IS's most active supply lines, completely isolating Sinjar from
militant strongholds in Syria and northern Iraq. The Kurdish
fighters also said they had secured the villages of Gabarra, on
the western front, and Tel Shore, Fadhelya and Qen on the eastern
front.

Some 7,500 peshmerga fighters were closing in on Sinjar from
three fronts, the security council said in a statement. In
addition to taking the town and the highway, Operation Free
Sinjar aimed to establish "a significant buffer zone to protect
the city and its inhabitants from incoming artillery."

Heavy gunfire broke out early Thursday as peshmerga fighters
began their approach amid aerial bombardment. An Associated Press
team saw a small American unit at the top of a hill along the
front line calling in and confirming airstrikes.

The coalition said 24 airstrikes were carried out over the past
day, striking nine militant tactical units, nine staging areas
and destroying 27 fighting positions, among other targets.

"(Peshmerga) troops are holding their position, waiting for
reinforcements and more airstrikes so they can then move into the
center of the town. Airstrikes have been very important to the
operation getting to the point where it is now," said Maj. Gen.
Seme Busal, commander of one of the front lines.

Sinjar was captured by the Islamic State group in August 2014
shortly after the extremists seized Iraq's second-largest city,
Mosul, and blitzed across northern Iraq.

The major objective of the offensive is to completely cut off
Highway 47, which passes by Sinjar and indirectly links the
militants' two biggest strongholds — Raqqa in Syria and Mosul in
northern Iraq — as a route for goods, weapons and fighters.
Coalition-backed Kurdish fighters on both sides of the border are
now working to retake parts of that corridor.

"If you take out this major road, that is going to slow down the
movement of (IS's quick reaction force) elements," Capt. Chance
McCraw, a military intelligence officer with the U.S. coalition,
told journalists Wednesday. "If they're trying to move from Raqqa
over to Mosul, they're going to have to take these back roads and
go through the desert, and it's going take hours, maybe days
longer to get across."

Iraqiyya state television said Kurdish peshmerga also reached the
Sinjar mayor's office, though Kurdish officials did not
immediately confirm it.

Screenshot Via Google Maps

Kurdish officials said clouds of smoke above Sinjar on Thursday
were making it more difficult for coalition planes to carry out
airstrikes as thousands of Peshmerga fighters moved toward the
town from the east and west and massed at the edges.

Warplanes in the U.S.-led coalition have been striking around
Sinjar ahead of the offensive and strikes grew more intense at
dawn Thursday. But Sinjar, located at the foot of Sinjar Mountain
about 30 miles (50 kilometers) from the Syrian border, is not an
easy target. One attempt by the Kurds to retake it stalled in
December. The militants have been reinforcing their ranks in
Sinjar recently in expectation of an assault, though the U.S.-led
coalition was not able to give specifics on the size of the IS
forces.

"On the radio we hear (IS) calling for reinforcements from
Syria," Rebwar Gharib, a deputy sergeant on the central front
line said Thursday.

The Islamic State group inflicted a wave of terror in the Sinjar
area against the minority Yazidi community, members of an ancient
religion whom the Islamic State group views as heretics and
accuses of worshipping the devil. An untold number were killed in
the August 2014 assault, and hundreds of men and women were
kidnapped — the women enslaved and given to militants across the
group's territory in Iraq and Syria, many of the men believed
killed, others forced to convert.

Tens of thousands of Yazidis fled into the mountains, where the
militants surrounded them, leaving them trapped and exposed in
the blazing heat. The crisis prompted the U.S. to launch air
drops of aid to the stranded, and then on August 8, it launched
the first round of airstrikes in what would mark the beginning of
a broader coalition effort to battle the militant group in Iraq
and Syria.

Some of those stranded on Mount Sinjar were rescued by Syrian
Kurdish fighters, who cleared a path for the Yazidis to descend
from the mountain, cross into Syria, then cross back into
northern Iraq's Kurdish autonomous zone. Then, in December,
Kurdish fighters in northwestern Iraq managed to drive the
militants out of areas on the other side of the mountain, opening
a corridor that helped many of the remaining Sinjaris to escape.
Those Kurdish fighters then tried to advance into Sinjar town
itself but were fought off by the militants.

Various Kurdish militias on the town's edge have been fighting
guerrilla battles for months with IS, damaging or destroying much
of the picturesque town of ancient, narrow streets lined with
modest stone homes. The factions include the Turkey-based Kurdish
Workers' Party (PKK), the Syria-based People's Protection Units
(YPG) and Yazidi-led forces billing themselves as the Sinjar
Resistance. Iraqi Kurdish fighters have also held positions
further outside the town.